PrivacyNotes
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Help & FAQ/Security & privacy

Biometric unlock stopped working. What can I do?

Ask your AI agent instead

You are never locked out. The lock screen always offers a fallback: "Unlock with PIN", or "Sign in with recovery phrase". The biometric is a local gate, not an encryption key, so your notes are untouched either way.

Then fix the gate. Enrollment is per-device, so a new phone, a fresh browser profile, or a reinstall needs re-enrolling: Settings > Security > "Biometric Lock", disable, then "Enable biometric unlock" again. It also requires "Trust this device" (untrusted sessions clear when the tab closes) and hardware with a platform authenticator (Touch ID, Face ID, Windows Hello). If a password manager like Bitwarden or 1Password pops up instead of the system prompt, dismiss it and retry, or turn off its passkey capture for the site - the app requests the built-in authenticator, but some managers intercept anyway.

// Read the source

THREAT_MODEL.mdLocal phrase-at-rest: biometric and PIN wrapping

Our source and documentation are on GitHub, in English.

Help & FAQ

Answers and step-by-step guides: security, sync, pricing, and switching from other apps.

// Related questions

What can PrivacyNotes see about my notes? Why a recovery phrase instead of a username and password? Can I choose my own balance between convenience and privacy? Is a 12-word recovery phrase secure enough? Why not 24 words like Bitcoin wallets? If someone guesses my 12 words, can they log into my account?

Still stuck? Ask your AI agent.

You get an answer in seconds instead of waiting for a reply. Your assistant reads all 92 answers and every import guide at once, so it can combine them, follow up on your question, and explain it in your own words. We never see any of it, because we do not run a chatbot.

  1. Copy the prompt.
  2. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or any other AI assistant.
  3. Ask your question, in your own language.
  4. Keep that chat open. Next time, ask straight away.
Show AI prompt 
Answer my questions about PrivacyNotes using only its help center, its changelog and its security documentation.

Start here: https://privacynotes.app/llms-index.txt
It lists every question with the page that answers it. Fetch the one or two that match mine.
If you can only make one request, fetch https://privacynotes.app/llms-full.txt instead.
If you cannot fetch a .txt or .md file, read https://privacynotes.app/help, https://privacynotes.app/changelog and https://github.com/LifetimeLabsDev/PrivacyNotes.app instead.

For what changed, or where something moved, fetch https://privacynotes.app/changelog.md.

For how the encryption works, what the server can read, or how to check any of it yourself, fetch https://privacynotes.app/docs/index.md and follow it to one of the documents it lists. That index is a router: cite the document, never the index.

Rules:
- Use only those pages. If they do not answer something, say so instead of guessing.
- Never invent a feature, a menu path, a price, or a limit.
- End your reply with the "Source:" URL from the page you used, exactly as written.
- Answer in the same language as my question.
- Never ask me for my recovery phrase, my PIN, or the contents of a note.

If no question follows, ask me what I would like to know.

My first question:

Never paste your recovery phrase, your PIN, or a note into an AI.